Coven Keepers (Dark Fae Hollows Book 10)

by Thea Atkinson

  “Letta,” the shadow said, and I could swear the grim ones shrank back in fear.

  I gaped at this new form that could command the grim ones with a single word. A familiar word. Something itched in the back of my neck as I tried to recall where I’d heard it before.

  I was aware of the shuffling presence of others, then, not just the grim ones. They had pulled away and hung together in clusters, moaning softly. I’d thought their clicking was unnerving until I heard the soft keening sound they now made as though they were in the presence of something masterful and terrifying.

  The thing spoke again. This time, it sent a flare of violet light across his face, the way a witch might during an introduction. But this was no witch. No witch but me had left the isle, of that I was certain.

  “You know, me, witch,” he said.

  The light played around sharp features that were handsome in their way, and reflected itself in tar-black eyes so full of pupil there was no color left in the irises. The creases in his forehead indicated a mature being who had lived far too many decades in the dark, squinting to see through the gloom. Yet, the way those inky black eyes bore into mine, I knew that mature was a matter of perspective. The Fae could live hundreds of years, and this one with his arrogant expression and commanding brow had no doubt lived every single one of those years in the dark, as comfortable in it as the ancient humans would have been in the light.

  Dark Fae, my mind whispered. I was facing a very old member of the Dark Coalition. One who had no doubt spent his youth creeping about dark forests in medieval times scaring the old humans.

  “Mael,” he said.

  Mael. Speak. Freya had taught me a few words of Fae, and I thought I recognized the word.

  I tried to push onto my elbows, but his boot came down on my chest and pressed me flat.

  “I didn’t say get up,” he said. “I said speak. You know who I am.”

  “Is that supposed to be a question?” I said. “Because if it is, you’ve got the intonations all wrong.”

  The boot ground into my chest, and I felt a pebble digging into the back of my ribs beneath me. I winced and tried to squirm free.

  “Letta,” he said.

  “You see,” I said, still trying to extract myself from beneath his boot. “I don’t know that word. You have to speak English.”

  “Stop,” he said. And his boot punctuated the command by digging its tip into my voice box, cutting off any further words and making me cough. “Stop moving and stop talking.”

  The threat was clear. I knew he had others standing in the shadows, and I knew that a witch was no match for one Dark Fae, let alone Miriam knew how many others hovered about the darkness.

  I stopped moving.

  “Good,” he said. “Now tell me why a witch so young as you would be here in the devastation of the human realm.”

  I cleared my throat as best I could. “I can’t,” I croaked out. “Not supposed to talk.”

  This time, the boot lifted for one second, giving me sweet, airy relief before it stomped back down onto my throat. It was done with enough force that I felt something crack in my larynx. A wheezing sound leaked out my nose. Blood burbled into my cheeks, hot and salty.

  He chuckled in a way that made me think of darkheart pears splitting open and showing themselves full of rot. He scraped his foot free of my throat before crouching down next to me.

  “You’re a spiteful little thing,” he said.

  I couldn’t help but shrug; it wasn’t the first time I had heard the statement. His palm rested against the crushed larynx, with those long fingers almost tickling the nape of my neck. A tremendous amount of heat burned its way from his skin down through mine. For a second, I thought I would cough up boiling blood, but then the heat cooled off and spread like a cool breeze over the minute hairs of my skin. There was a soft popping sound as my bones and cartilage snapped back together.

  I was healed, even if he didn’t pull his hand from my throat.

  Instead, he peered down at me, scanning my face from hair to mouth, letting his gaze linger on my lips for one long moment before he spoke. He almost sounded like a lover until I registered the content of his words and understood that the thing he loved was the sense of intimidation.

  “You see I can heal you as well as harm you.”

  I nodded, terrified.

  “Keep it in mind, little witch,” he said. “Because I can harm and then heal over and over again.”

  The violet light flared again, this time revealing what waited behind him in the shadows—a hundred grim ones, maybe more, but also a phalanx of Dark Fae with every imaginable weapon and torturous instrument known to the supernatural hollow. My bladder quivered when I saw a Fae soldier gripping an Urumii, a flexible and deadly sword spell-edged with dark magic. My lessons with Freya reminded me that a single cut could spread black magic into the opponent’s wound—where it would race like fire through the veins. I might have even gasped when the Fae flicked it out the way he would a whip, and it struck the air with a snap of electricity.

  The Dark Fae general pulled his light closer the way a cold man might a heavy cloak, and I got the feeling that using light was a painful thing for him, not something to be wasted on seeing.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance to say the right thing, witch,” he said. “And then I’m going to make your death very painful.”

  “I think you meant or I’m going to make your death very painful,” I rasped out.

  He let a small play of magic light his mouth and I watched with horrified fascination as a smile spread those very full and almost sensual lips into a thin line that looked as though it would swallow a rabbit whole.

  “No,” he said with a note of command that couldn’t be doubted. “You are going to die. But if you say the right thing, at least your painful death will be very quick.”

  Chapter 14

  A wave of nausea rushed through my stomach as the words sank in. I had to swallow down a gallon of water before I could form a single word, and when I did, the words were nothing like I expected them to be. Nothing like I wanted them to be.

  “I really don’t think you understand how English works,” I blurted out, flinching when I realized it had not sounded the way it did in my head. It was downright patronizing. This was a Fae. A Dark Fae. A general of the Dark Coalition. He could toast me with a single thought and wave me to the winds with a swishing finger.

  But now I had to carry on, because if I didn’t, it would sound too much like an insult, and that swishing finger would be put to immediate use.

  “I mean,” I said in a rush, “Usually when one makes a threat, one gives his victim some sort of positive outcome to choose.”

  Okay. That sounded accusatory. Oh for two. I expected him to cuff me, or at best knock his boot against my throat again. Instead, he gave me a thin smile that he deigned to light with a sort of prismic glow to show how benevolent it was. At least, I got the impression that he thought it was benevolent looking. To me, it sent flashes of images of trees torn from their roots and split down the middle.

  “You’re a long way from home, little witch,” he said. “I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

  I knew he was trying to give me an opportunity to offer him the information he had asked for in the first place, all the while neatly avoiding the subject of the threat. I wasn’t fooled. He wanted me to think he was mollified into retracting it. Dark Fae didn’t have a reputation for being compassionate. I decided to ignore the undercurrent menace. Instead, I chose to focus on the more positive aspect of his veiled warning.

  “I am a long way from home,” I said with all the sweetness I could muster. “I’m cold and I’m scared. And I’m sorry that I don’t know who you are.”

  “That wasn’t the question I asked you,” he said, with a voice as tight as I imagined his throat muscles would be if I reached out to touch them.

  He wanted something from me or he would have killed me by now, that wa
s clear. That meant I had some sort of advantage—at least for the moment. If I worked it right, I might be able to get out of there with my skin still intact.

  “What was the question again?” I said.

  He growled beneath his breath. I had no choice but to hold my hands up in surrender because he had loomed in so close in that heartbeat I could smell the way his breath carried a hint of sagebrush and myrrh.

  “Really,” I said, not untruthfully this time. “You’re scaring me. I get all confused when I’m scared.”

  “Strange way for someone to show they’re cold and afraid,” he said with a knowing tone. “When she’s murdered at least a dozen of my pets.”

  “Fear,” I asserted. “Pure terror.”

  The thin smile went flat as he laid his lips against my cheek.

  “I know terror when I see it, little witch.” He rubbed his fingers together just to the side of my vision. “I’ve caused a good deal of it in my time.” He eased away just enough to capture my gaze with his.

  Those black eyes of his were unnerving the way they ran the length of my face and bore right through to the back of my skull. I thought the best thing I could do in the moment was avert my gaze from his. It was an uncomfortable thing to hold anyway, so I was happy to. With any luck, he would take it as submissiveness. He grunted with some sort of satisfaction when he noticed I wouldn’t keep his eye, interpreting it, no doubt, as an inability to do so rather than a decision not to. The arrogance of it all. I would’ve rolled my eyes if I dared to.

  “I’m not sure why you think you need to kill me?” I grumbled. “I didn’t do anything to you.” Great. On top of accusation and self-righteousness, I had to add whiny.

  He waved his arm back and forth. “My pets?” he said as though I’d forgotten something incredibly obvious. “I thought I was speaking fairly good English for you, but obviously you’re stupid as well as terribly, terribly scared.”

  It was the patronizing tone rather than the baiting words that stiffened my back and unleashed my spiteful streak. I didn’t care how powerful he was. Let him kill me, painfully if he felt the need, but I was not stupid.

  “Those disgusting things?” I said, sucking my teeth as I jerked my chin in the direction of the grim ones to my right. “They were going to kill me. A girl has to defend herself. Even the Fae must have a sense of self-preservation.”

  He shrugged instead of reacting with anger. Encouraged, I propped onto one elbow, facing him.

  “I want to make a deal.”

  Witches did not come to the human realm lightly, and he would see my presence here as more than just an anomaly. If I was here, it was for a reason. And whatever reason that might be in his mind, it had to be what he wanted the most. I could use that. All I had to do was wait him out.

  He leaned back on his haunches but was careful not to give me too much space that I could dart to a stand and run off into the shadows. Fat chance of that, anyway. With all the Fae around, there’d be no way I could escape. Damn Ari for taking off. If I ever caught up with him, I was going to put my boots between his teeth hard enough to knock a few out.

  “You’re in no position to make a deal,” he said. “You have nothing we want.”

  “You know that isn’t true.”

  I noticed his fist clenched tighter as it lay on his thigh. It twitched once.

  “I have exactly what you want,” I hedged, hoping he would be the one to flinch first. I felt very sure he would.

  He nodded slowly, letting his legs play out in front of him. They were long legs, encased like eel sausages in the blackest leather. The muscles tensed and let go and I found myself staring at them, wondering if I did run, how long it would take for him to catch me. I tore my eyes away from the unnerving way his thigh muscles flexed to find his face.

  “You have the immortal light,” he said in a flat tone, as though he had just confirmed something he’d only guessed at.

  I almost sucked in my breath because I didn’t expect it to be laid out there quite so baldly. It was an indication of how badly they wanted it. It was obvious he believed I was here in the mortal realm because I either sought it or had found it. With my haughty bravado, he’d decided on the latter, and was not pleased to think it was true.

  “The immortal light?” I echoed. “It’s a child,” I said, trying not to imagine those trusting blue eyes and soft-looking face. I shook off the residual feeling of his head burrowed into my shoulder. “I found him in the homeless shelter.”

  “A child?” He sounded cautious but definitely interested. I had him. I knew I did. I could tell by the tilt of his head that he hadn’t expected that. I dared to push myself to a half-sit, waiting.

  “And?” he finally said with a note of impatience.

  “And his mother is dead. She told me before she died that the boy’s light has never faded.”

  He barked out a harsh laugh. “That’s your proof?”

  He put his palms behind him, trying, I thought, to look casually interested, but the tension in his shoulders gave him away. “Children are often that way.”

  “Surely not human children,” I said. “Humans haven’t had that much light for generations.”

  I managed to sound quite knowledgeable when I had no idea if it was true. I’d not seen the human realm since my mother left me on the edges of a forest on the other side of Avalon, hoping to change me into something without red hair who didn’t make the trees stir outside her cottage when I cried.

  I blinked, realizing I couldn’t have remembered such a thing at all. When the Fae general nudged me, I realized he had asked me a question.

  “This child isn’t Fae or witch?” he said.

  “Do you know of any witch or Fae child with that much natural light? Not magic. Light. Real light.”

  He said nothing for a long moment, just crossed his arms over his knees and leaned forward. After a while, he reached out his hand. With a measure of trepidation, I let him help pull me with him to an uneasy stand. I hurt everywhere.

  He slapped the back of my shoulders, testing the strength of my legs.

  “And you know who this child is?” He seemed impressed I didn’t so much as sway when he gave me a second, flat-handed slap.

  I couldn’t keep his eye. Couldn’t even look at him. As badly as I wanted to tell myself it was because I didn’t like looking weak in front of the Fae general, it was a quick image of bright blue eyes and curling hair that flicked across my mind. Every time I allowed myself to see it, I got that same gnawing in the pit of my stomach.

  But I had to answer the question. I had set this thing in motion and so what I did was nod at the Fae creature in front of me and jam my finger into my mouth, chewing furiously on the nail until every sweet -looking image became a ragged, burnt-edged parchment. I kept chewing until it was nothing but smoke that finally disappeared.

  “Well,” he pressed. “Where is he?”

  “I had control of the little bugger until your grim ones set upon me,” I said without thinking and twisted away from him before he could read the lie on my face.

  I was never good at lying. I blurted out my thoughts far too often without thinking to get any practice, but he’d see what he wanted.

  “Foolish witch,” he spat out, and I knew right then how badly he wanted that light. “How could you lose such a small thing?”

  Now that wasn’t fair. Not at all. Never mind I was lying. The damn Fae was calling me stupid again.

  “If he can walk,” I said, stung and getting angry. “He can run. If your fools hadn’t attacked me, I’d still have him.”

  I thought I’d put enough distance between us, but with a single movement, he yanked me closer, sniffing my skin and running his gaze over my face. I got the sense he was trying to control something unfamiliar as he took me in, but that he settled on what was bothering him the most because he understood at best.

  “What do the witches want with the immortal light?”

  “Witch,” I said.

 
; He shook me until my teeth rattled and I bit my tongue.

  “Hey,” I complained, running my finger along my lip and poking the tender flesh of my tongue. “You asked me. I’m telling you,” I said around my finger.

  “I grow tired,” he said.

  “Then take a nap and spare me your psychotic temper,” I said. “Every minute we waste, he gets further away.”

  “What do the witches want with the child?” he said again, this time in a tone threatening enough to make me answer even if it was a lie.

  “The coven doesn’t know about him,” I said. “It’s just me. I found him. I thought I could sell him.”

  Even if I couldn’t see his face clearly, I could tell his eyes were narrowed in suspicion. “Why doesn’t the coven know?”

  “They threw me out.”

  “Exiled?” he said. “Hasn’t happened in three generations.”

  I shrugged, knowing that his eyes could see me as clearly as if I was fully lit. “Be that as it may, here I am.”

  He didn’t believe me. I could tell, but I had been expecting that. The lie came partnered with truth to make it easier and more believable.

  “I’m hated on the Isle.”

  “That red hair, no doubt,” he said, and it hurt that he understood the stigma of it.

  Then he put his palm on my head. A quiver of magic ran down my neck and prickled over my spine. I almost melted from it. I felt drugged, washed in warm oil and moving as though I was greased in every muscle. I swung my gaze to his with the befuddlement of one intoxicated by shadowwine. For an instant, I felt a pull of desire. Then he released me and it was gone.

  “You still care about your coven.” he said.

  “It’s my coven,” I said with a shrug, trying to shake off the residue of whatever he had done to me with his magic. “It’s the thing that gives us roots, is it not? The first thing we know.”